Chapter 9
“These chambers were not meant for me,” said Maeve. “They are meant for you.”
She stood in the doorway of the Crown’s Quarters in Castle Morana. The suite meant for he or she who wore the Dread Crown. Carved onto the threshold and the door handles were markings of Vexkari. Some old. Some new.
“It’s the safest place in the castle,” he said. “The ancient Magic in this room is holy. It is of my blood. I want you here.”
Maeve stepped inside the bedchamber. It sat high in Castle Morana, overlooking the jagged cliffs of the Dark Peaks. The large windows should have shown her such a landscape, but it showed the cliff-side in Scotland. She halted.
The cliff-side around Sinclair Estates.
“It’s. . .” She began.
“Enchanted. Just like the one in your old bedroom,” said Mal cooly.
And like the one in her father’s study.
Maeve crossed to the window. Her fingers pressed against the cool glass.
“You did this?” She asked.
“Yes.” He replied.
She didn’t look at him. The gesture was wonderful, but nearly unbearable. A memory of her father surfaced. She did her best to repress it. Spinel scurried across the room, making himself comfortable in a chair by the fire.
“It’s very well done.” She ran her finger up and down the windowpane in an attempt to distract herself. “Solid Magic.”
“You should get some rest,” said Mal.”
“No, I’m alright.”
“You haven’t been sleeping.”
“How do you know that?” She asked, looking over her shoulder.
Mal answered calmly. “I can feel it.”
She looked back at the enchanted window. “I heard your voice so often,” she began. “In nightmares when I felt as though I was drowning. When I dozed off in the bath and slipped into the water.”
She turned from the window and surveyed her chambers. They were decorated with deep blue, nearly black, bedding and rugs. The armchairs were a pale green color. And the vanity along the far wall boasted a large gold framed mirror. She looked up at the painted ceiling and spoke.
“My mind. . . it’s not connected to you like I became so accustomed to.” She turned back to the window and tapped the glass twice with her knuckle. The cliff side shook silently and vanished, mist covering it fully. A new view appeared, the true view outside her chamber. Heavy rain blurred the Dark Peaks. “I am in your presence at last and I have never felt more alone.”
Maeve brought her fingers to her chest, where his Dread Locket once hung.
Mal stood across the room. His gaze burned a hole in the side of her face.
“Look at me,” he commanded slowly.
She obeyed. His face was soft as he stared down at her.
“I shouldn’t have let you stay on Earth.”
“Well, I didn’t want to be here,” she fired back.
Mal hid the wound her words created well. He spoke coolly, as he always did. “I believe you need genuine sleep.”
“I can’t–” she started, her voice breaking.
She looked back out the window, her pride and anger refusing to cry before him.
“Why can’t you sleep?” Asked Mal quietly. “I tried to see your dreams, but your mind is closed to me.”
Maeve didn’t answer right away.
“I have this recurring dream,” she said quietly. “That I’m at my house, my old home, but it’s different. It’s broken and falling apart and dark. Nothing like it truly stands.” She paused. “Or ever stood.” Her voice grew quick. “And I know why I’m there. I’m supposed to save him. But when I make it to him, he’s in this empty bathroom, stumbling around, confused and bleeding, and he doesn’t even know who I am–”
She shook her head, tightening the grip on her emotions.
“And then I turn and Antony is there, watching, looking horror-struck. And when I turn back to my father, he’s in this old bathtub, sitting hunched over himself, naked, shivering, and shaking in filthy water, and he still doesn’t know who I am.”
Maeve paused and then said quietly. “And I watch him. And know that no matter what I do. . . he will die in my hands.”
Mal was closer now. “It’s only a dream, Maeve.”
Maeve couldn’t look at him. “Is it? If it is, it is so close to reality I can no longer remember which is which. My choices. My negligence. His death.” She held herself tightly. Her body nearly shook. “I cannot block the memory of him myself. I want him gone from my mind.” She turned towards his strained face. “Can you just–”
Mal spoke calmly, disregarding her words. “No,” he interrupted. “I will not block those thoughts and memories. You must face them.”
Maeve turned back towards the window once more. Pale green mist rolled over the mountains across the lands. She looked up. Three moons in perfect alignment sat across the sky. She wondered if her father had seen these moons the night he died. She wondered what he pictured for his own life in the Dread Lands.
He had been so proud that his daughter was the Dread Prince’s second. His Dread Viper. Destined for power.
“Seven months. And not a word.” She said, barely above a whisper. She didn’t look at him. “Not even a glimmer or glimpse of your Magic.”
The tether Mal kept on his temper slacked.
“If you had wanted to feel me, you would have. And if I recall, it was you who asked me for solitude, you asked me for time.”
She looked over at him. “Not this long.”
“Time is different deep in these lands, Maeve. I had no sense of how much time had gone by.”
Her eyes raked over him. She shook her head. His Magic felt so unfamiliar. So foreign.
She swallowed and looked away from him. “Roswyn says that he thinks you and I shouldn’t be more than The Dread Prince and his Sword. That we all benefit from a purely platonic dynamic in power.”
Mal’s brows lifted. “You’re listening to Roswyn now?”
She didn’t answer right away.
“Maeve.”
She didn’t look at him. Wouldn’t. Couldn’t. “I pledged myself to you. To fight for your life and your crown. And I intend to until my final breath.” She paused. “If you’ll still have me as your second, I desire to be that and that alone.”
He was silent. And then cold wind fluttered from behind her. She turned, and he was gone. All the light around her faded, save for the pale green twilight of the Dread Lands.